


sometimes i wish for falling (wish for the release)

by roses_and_thorns3



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Flashforward - Freeform, Florence + the Machine References, Lightwood mention, M/M, Scene from 3x01, brief appearance of Jace - Freeform, darker!clary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 22:38:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11838441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roses_and_thorns3/pseuds/roses_and_thorns3
Summary: It's been months since Clary murdered her father at Lake Lyn. It feels like no time has passed at all.OrFlorence + The Machine makes emotional earworms, and Clary isn't having it.





	sometimes i wish for falling (wish for the release)

Training, Clary thought, was a wonderful medium for thought process.

 

In the months since the Clave had won the war against Valentine, since Clary had stuck a knife in her father, she’d taken up training like it was lifeblood. She was tired of honing the basics. The basics were something the Lightwoods had taught her ages ago. Now she wanted to _fight_.

And the first step to fighting, Jace had said, was learning how to fall with grace.

 

Clary used this as motivation as she eyed the paneled floor of the Institute’s training room. She balanced carefully on a wooden beam extending from the ceiling, poised to leap from it. This was something she’d not yet had the stomach for -- the thought of splattering into pieces on the floor roughly thirty feet below where she now leveled herself, an Equilibrium rune marked on the small of her back. Her hair was growing out again, and she’d taken to wearing it in a messy bun when training, the way she used to when she drew. Since that night at Lake Lyn she’d barely been able to pick up a pencil. The thought of drawing seemed like a distant memory. She supposed it _was_ a distant memory.

 

Blinking back to the present, she steeled herself, and fell.

 

It wasn’t as scary as she’d anticipated. She was reminded dimly of the Florence + The Machine song she used to listen to while she drew.

 

_Sometimes I wish for falling,_

_Wish for the release,_

_Wish for falling through the air,_

_To give me some relief…_

 

It _was_ peaceful. Clary pretended she was flying. Pretended large white wings were unfolding from her back and that she was free, she was free, she was free. Falling. Surprisingly therapeutic.

As long as you didn’t splatter into pieces on the floor when you landed.

 

_Because falling’s not the problem,_

_When I’m falling I’m at peace…_

 

The air was a living thing in Clary’s hair, a comforting tingle against her the runes on her skin. She closed her eyes serenely, letting her instincts take over, letting her wings keep her safe.

_It’s only when I hit the ground,_

_That causes all the grief._

_…_

_There was nothing but fury in Clary’s mind as she slammed the knife into her father’s chest. Valentine stared back at her, a stunned expression on his face as she withdrew the knife and plunged it back in. Again. Again. Again. Clary could no longer see, could no longer hear. The only thing filling her mind was Jace’s sleeping face, a single tear trickling down his face as his life fled his body. Could only hear that faded_ I love you _over and over in her ears._

 

_She could only see the night she came running frantically home from Pandemonium. Could only see the fear in her mother’s eyes -- not for herself -- but for Clary, and what Valentine would do to her daughter._

_She could only see the shattered remains of a display case littering the antique rug in her mother’s store, Jocelyn and Dot nowhere to be found._

_She could only see the slowly spreading pool of blood around her mother’s body. The ugly stains on her mother’s jacket, destroyed organs hanging out of the hole in her chest._

 

_Clary saw nothing as she killed her father. Nothing but pain._

…

She landed roughly, rolling onto her back and earning herself fresh bruises on her elbows as gravity resumed its pull on her body. That moment of bliss was a thing of the past -- uglier, more painful memories shoving into her line of thought. Sitting up tentatively, she noticed a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye.

Clary sat up straight, eyes scanning the training room for the source of said movement.

 

There was no one in the room but herself.

 

But there was that sound again. The old song she used to listen to.

_Sometimes I wish for falling,_

_Wish for the release,_

_Wish for falling through the air,_

_To give me some relief…_

 

The song slithered off the walls and moved further away. Struggling to her feet, Clary chased the sound of it, spent leg muscles screeching in protest.

She followed the song, now eerie and strange in her ears, down the hall and towards the residential wing of the Institute. Her fingers itched toward the stele in her back pocket. She had used a replacement since losing her own in Lake Lyn all those months ago. It hadn’t felt the same as her other one, but it did its job.

 

_Because falling’s not the problem,_

_When I’m falling I’m at peace…_

 

Her bedroom door was half-open. She could see the edge of an empty easel propped against the wall and another flicker of movement -- like the corner of a jacket.

Expression shifting into one of determination, Clary’s hand went to her stele as she strode towards her bedroom and burst through the doorway--

To find Valentine Morgenstern peering down at one of her failed drawing attempts.

 

Surprise hit Clary like a ton of bricks. Within the span of a heartbeat she had lunged for her desk, fingers inching for the seraph blade seated there, when Valentine straightened and stared right at her.

“Now, that isn’t necessary, is it?” His voice was calm and edged with condescension. Valentine had never paid much attention to his youngest child. Pity that, it was what killed him in the end. Now he looked at her with a predator’s glare.

 

Clary stared right back, confusion and anger drowning out the initial shock.

“You’re dead.” Her tone sounded like she was reassuring someone who clearly didn’t believe her.

Valentine smirked, “A winning observation, considering you killed me.”

Clary squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to see the truth. She had killed Valentine. She watched the life leave his eyes as he clutched his ruined throat. _She_ had done that. With her own hands. Had let his blood dry on her fingers.

“You’re not real.” she said.

 

“So what if I’m not? I’m _here_ , either way.” He took a step closer. Clary’s hand closed around the hilt of the sword behind her. Valentine paid no attention to her movements.

“What do you want?”

“To speak to my daughter, is all.”

“I have _never_ been your daughter. Luke is my father. You never will be. You’re _dead_.”

Anger flashed clearly in Valentine’s eyes at the mention of his former _parabatai_ , “That _thing_ , does not share blood with you, Clarissa. I do. You are mine.”

 

He began pacing the length of her bedroom, dragging a finger across the duvet on her bed, examining the rings she’d left on her nightstand. He looked at her belongings like they were rare specimens of a species he’d never bothered to study.

“You see Clarissa, I really do regret not meeting you when you were younger. You’d have had so much more potential. You could have learned from me, like Jace.”

 

“Jace is nothing like you.” she snapped.

He settled his gaze on her again and smiled, “No, I don’t suppose he is. But you are.”

Nausea twinged in Clary’s stomach at those words. _But you are_.

“I’m not--”

“ _Oh_ , don’t kid yourself Clarissa! You know better than that.” His voice sounded disappointed.

“You have Morgenstern blood. Like Jonathan. Like me. How different from me do you think you are? I’ll answer that for you. Not much.”

 

Anger awoke beneath Clary’s skin, the hand wrapped around her seraph blade beginning to shake. She wanted to deny him, wanted to refute his claims, but she couldn’t, not when--

“That’s right. Let it out. You _killed_ me. Violently, might I add. What side of your family do you think that comes from?”

Bile rose in her throat. “No,” was all she could manage to say.

 

“Oh, there’s no need to be upset, daughter. It’s only the truth. You’d have to stop denying it at some point. _You’re a Morgenstern_. You proved that when you drove that knife into my chest.” He pointed at her free hand, and suddenly the switchblade Valentine had used to murder Jace, the blade Clary had used to kill _him_ , was in her grasp. Blood ran down the blade and over her knuckles, pooling on the floor next to her foot. It was warm, and far too real.

 

Though she didn’t drop the knife.

 

When she looked up again, Valentine was directly in front of her. A look like exasperation on his face. There were holes in his chest. Four of them. Blood trickled from a slash along his jugular. These were the wounds she’d killed him with. Before she could react, he clapped his hands down on her face.

“You see Clarissa? You are like me. There is ice in your heart and ruthlessness in your bones. Don’t try to deny it.” Blood spilled from his lips as he choked on his words. It was dripping on Clary’s tank top. A giant lump had formed in her throat, she wanted desperately to be sick, but her father hadn’t finished speaking.

 

“You’re my daughter, a-and I am so...proud of you.” He could barely say the last words. There was more blood in his mouth than there was room for speaking. Drops of blood splattered on Clary’s lips. She wanted to scream, but she didn’t want to open her mouth.

“I-I...l-love..you…” Her father said.

 

Clary ripped her seraph blade from her desk and plunged it into Valentine’s stomach.

~

When Clary woke from the nightmare, she was coated in two layers of sweat and a dull headache was forming slowly in her brain. Her mouth tasted like vomit. Trembling, she sat up, careful not to wake Jace, who slept peacefully beside her. She tried using the serene look on his face to calm her, but it only made her think of how similar it had looked when--when,

 

When Valentine had killed him, and she had killed Valentine.

 

Clary shoved the heels of her palms into her eyes, wishing she could scrub the dream from her memory.

 _You are my daughter, and I am_ so _proud of you_.

**Author's Note:**

> Just something I thought of and wanted to write! I really love the idea of exploring the darker parts of Clary, specifically the Morgenstern parts of her, and this was the result of that. Valentine deserved his death in every way possible, but I imagine murdering your own flesh and blood would still hold some weight in your psyche.


End file.
